ḤAYYIM B. SOLOMON:

Russo-Polish preacher; born at Wilna; died there Dec., 1804 (1794?), at an advanced age. His father, R. Solomon b. Ḥayyim, who died in 1766, was dayyan and preacher at Wilna. Ḥayyim was a friend of Elijah Gaon of Wilna and of Raphael ha-Kohen, later of Hamburg, who, as rabbi of Minsk and the surrounding district, appointed him, in 1757, traveling preacher. Ḥayyim appears to have been previously rabbi or preacher in Serhei, now government of Suwalki, for he is usually surnamed "Serheier." In his later years he occupied his father's position as preacher and "moreh hora'ah" in Wilna. Ḥayyim was one of the two commissioners sent out in the summer of 1796 by the rabbis and notables of Wilna, headed by the gaon, to agitate against the Ḥasidim in Lithuania and White Russia, especially in Minsk.